Roger Crowley rousingly relates the story of Venice’s rise from backwards lagoon to the dominant commercial maritime empire in the 1400s. With this he also tells the story of the Mediterranean and of the powers which contested for dominance. Crowley’s style is energetic and much of the book has a velocity more common to a fictional thriller.Throughout the book runs the thread of the simmering and then open conflict with Islam that was to dominate the western world for so many centuries.